PODCAST: Jim Millstein on The Inside Track

11 April 2018

[The Inside Track is a new Debtwire podcast series featuring in depth and intimate conversations with today’s restructuring market leaders. It is a platform upon which guests will share the lessons they’ve learned throughout their careers guiding distressed companies and municipalities, as well as their constituencies, through the most challenging, complex, comprehensive and sometimes contentious reorganizations around the world. We will also address issues impacting the current distressed and restructuring landscapes.]

Jim has accomplished more in one career than most could do in four. Not only was Jim a partner at Cleary Gottlieb and the global co-head of Lazard’s corporate restructuring group, and currently the head of the financial advisory firm that carries his name, but in between these massive accomplishments, Jim served as the Chief Restructuring Office for the US Department of Treasury. This storied career has allowed Jim to sit front and center for some of the most notable restructurings over the past four decades, including Pan American Airlines, Daewoo, WorldCom, Charter Communications, AIG, American Airlines, Caesars and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.

Recently, Jim joined Debtwire’s Richard Goldman to launch the maiden episode of The Inside Track. During their discussion, Jim reflects upon and shares anecdotes from his “trial by fire” initiation to become a restructuring attorney, his transition from law firm partner to investment bank managing director, the Congressional confirmation process and his study of US financial regulation.

Jim also shares important lessons for practitioners young and old, including the importance of keeping a clean reputation, seizing upon chance opportunities and the role that luck plays in career development.